A Classroom Where Math Includes History, Ethnicity

Math 170 had an overflow of new students on the first day of the semester at Orange Coast College. So the dapper professor resorted to a fundamental concept to weed out surplus candidates for pre-calculus--a lottery.

Numbers were called and the lucky took the last seats, as orderly as algebra. Dr. Eduardo Jesus Arismendi-Pardi then announced his first rule of decorum. Students are required to address him by both of his last names, maternal and fraternal, as used in Latin America.

“If you call me Dr. Pardi, my Dad won’t be too happy,” said the Caracas-born son of a Venezuelan engineer, professor and businessman. “I like both of my parents, so you’ve got to call me both.”

Ironically, only the hyphen he added to his name keeps his mother and father together today. Arismendi-Pardi, who turns 40 next year, came to this country as a teenager after his parents divorced. He and his father went to live among the Mormons in Utah, where the elder Arismendi had business interests and the 17-year-old immigrant struggled to fit in. In those days, he was just plain Eddie Arismendi.

He reverted to his full, double surname in 1994, six years after joining the faculty of the Costa Mesa community college as a part-time math instructor. It was a hassle, convincing government bureaucrats who he really was and getting his friends and colleagues to stop calling him Eddie.

“That’s not me,” he says. “That person died.”

The cultural metamorphosis is familiar to many Latino immigrants who searched for their identities here as young adults. When I was in high school, everybody called me Gus. My name still appears that way on my Social Security card, but Gus Gurza seems like a ghost to me, too.

The name change is more than symbolic. It reflects the reclaiming of roots, acknowledging a rich heritage that can otherwise be lost through assimilation. For Eduardo, as I felt comfortable calling him, the cultural awakening also illuminates his work in the classroom. Recently, he became a proponent of a field of study called ethno-mathematics, which examines the development of math as a product of culture, not a mental abstract.

“Ethnomathematics rejects inequity, arrogance and bigotry while challenging the Eurocentric bias that denies the mathematical contributions and rigor of other cultures,” the professor stated in a professional paper presented this spring.

Eduardo holds that Egypt, not Greece, was the cradle of mathematics. He challenges the idea that Pythagoras, a Greek, should get the credit for the famous formula for determining the area of a right triangle. How, he wonders, could a European have “invented” the Pythagorean theorem when it was used 1,500 years earlier by the Egyptian architect Imhotep to design the spectacular Step Pyramid at Saqqara?

How? Only by ignoring history.

Eduardo notes that other early mathematical developments led to the building of the pyramids in Mexico, the Great Wall of China and the road to Katmandu. He now weaves such historical tidbits into his courses on trigonometry, algebra and calculus. Next year, he hopes to start a special course in ethnomathematics itself.

A few of his colleagues are skeptical. Some critics dismiss ethno-math like linguists dissed ebonics, according to Wolf Wayne, who’s taught math at Orange Coast for almost 30 years. Wayne is withholding his own judgment until Arismendi-Pardi makes a presentation to the department at its upcoming annual conference.

“Ethnomathematics is not ‘Brown Mathematics,’ ” says Eduardo. “And it’s not political correctness to the extreme. . . . We need to humanize mathematics by demonstrating that the field developed as a human response to human needs.”

Whenever he can, he trumpets the benefits of teaching ethnomath, which not only looks at how math is applied by racial and ethnic groups, but also by gender, age, occupation and even ideology. Multicultural math promotes cultural harmony, proponents say, and motivates more minority students and women to enter the field.

“I’m concerned that many students in our culture are turned off by math,” Eduardo says. “They drop out of classes in droves. . . . I want to connect with students.”

After Tuesday’s lottery for seats in pre-calculus, Eduardo took about half an hour to explain his inclusive approach. “Math was created by people like you and me,” he told the students. “I think what is missing in math is: How does it relate to humanity? How does it relate to us?”

The course is no sensitivity session or easy A. The cultural angle provides context; then Dr. Arismendi-Pardi expects students to do the math. The professor enumerates an even number of commandments for classroom comportment. There’s 10 of them, by chance.

No hats or sunglasses. He wants to see your face. (A young man in shorts removed his white baseball cap with a slow and exaggerated sweep of his hand, like a teenager who turns compliance into a protest.)

Cell phones and pagers must be turned off. Students must arrive on time and stay until the end of class.

“I’m very old-fashioned about that,” explained Eduardo.

No profanity or racial remarks allowed. And appropriate attire is required, added the bearded professor, looking spiffy in a double-breasted blue blazer, a button-down shirt, brightly colored tie and dress shoes with a military-grade polish.

Students praise the instructor for his charm, enthusiasm and professional appearance. Two of his students and a colleague nominated him in February for Orange Coast’s Faculty Member of the Year.

“He has a gift for enlivening the dull,” one student wrote in his nomination form.

Another praised the professor for his sense of humor and clear command of English. Quite a compliment for someone who felt lost in this country after arriving in 1976 without speaking a lick of the local language.

The change of status was also drastic. In Venezuela, the name Arismendi is found on buildings and streets; Eduardo’s great-great-grandfather was the nation’s vice president in the early 1800s, and a general under Simon Bolivar. His paternal grandmother was a concert pianist.

In the U.S. the Arismendis started over like most other immigrants.

“It was the hardest thing,” recalled Eduardo, who became a U.S. citizen in 1987. “One day, I was the son of an eminent, well-known professional, living off the fruit of my family. And then, the next day, I was nobody. I had nothing.”

He now lives in Phillips Ranch with his wife, Cheryl, a speech pathologist; their son, Mikhail, 9; and the family’s golden retriever, Einstein.

Last year, Eduardo received his doctorate in math education from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. During his research for the dissertation, he stumbled upon a brief reference to ethnomathematics, a field developed in the 1980s by a Brazilian educator named Ubiratan D’Ambrosio. The serendipitous encounter led him to 2,000 additional references and to the discovery of a new passion in his life.

“I opened a box that is full of treasures for me,” he said.